Healing from the Ground Up

Spiced Rose Elixir

Before I left Minnesota in June, I wanted to immortalize the fragrant roses from my neighborhood. I still have a few ounces of delicious and handy rose elixir from last season, so I decided to mix it up a bit and make an elixir version of one of my favorite love teas. ‘Love tea’ features a favorite combination of mine, rose petals and damiana, and just about any other herbs that strike my fancy. Hawthorn berries, milky oats, ashwaganda, shatavari, eleuthero are some of my regular additions.

To a non-herb person, it may seem unlikely that botanicals could ever have anything to do with love. I would beg to differ. First of all, there is no doubt that plants can effect our emotions, and I would bet that most of us have had experiences with food that has altered our emotions. Chocolate and champagne are almost cliche ‘romance’ foods. I don’t want to go so far as to say that rose and damiana are cliche romance herbs, but they do play a little on the heart-stings.

Although it contains herbs with well-known actions, I see it as being broad in usage. For example, it can be calming to the emotions and nervous system, relaxing yet stimulating in times of stress (it has adaptogenic qualities), as well as potentially being an aphrodisiac. Damiana is warm and spicy and tones Yang (Lesley Tierra, 75). Rose petals are both cooling and relaxing, and have a special affinity for the heart and heart chakra. Ashwaganda also tonifies Yang, as Tierra describes:

“[It] is one of the best rejuvenation herbs because it tonifies without being overly stimulating and, in fact, calms and strenghtens the nervous system. Thus, it can be widely used in all conditions of weakness, chronic debilitation due to over work, stress, insomnia, or nervous exhaustion, in other words for all of you burned-out Type A folks.” (60).

Elixirs are so easy to make, and easy to use. Please check out Kiva Rose’s blog for lots of info about the medicinal uses of roses and elixirs. Elixirs are part alcohol and part honey (or glycerine), I like equal parts of each, or more alcohol to honey. As far as alcohol goes, my normal preference is grain alcohol (especially with resinous herbs that need a high percentage of alcohol to fully extract) or brandy.

Back to the directions: fill a jar with herbs, pour over the alcohol of choice to fill the jar halfway, then top off with local, unheated honey. Let sit for 4-6 weeks, give it an occasional shake to add the maceration process, strain to a new bottle, label and enjoy 1-2 tablespoons as needed.

2 Comments

Sounds so delicious! I am a full on believer than herbs can impact feelings of love (just think of the concept of love potions!) and your reasoning is spot on, pulling together physiology and energetics in such a lovely way. Great post!